[MD] Intellect's Symposium

[David Thomas]

Bo,

Love Ya ! Precisely the type of wriggling I anticipated.

It immediately brought this question to mind. (Oops, forgot minds don't
exist.)

"What value, what good, does Bo bring to the MoQ and this site?"
And almost instantly this popped out of (God?) knows where:

"Bo by tenaciously over a long period of time holding a position that most
others find untenable and irrational forces all of us to try to better
understand the MoQ and its consequences. And this is GOOD."

Thank you sincerely. But wouldn't you like to partake of just a little bit
of the benefits of your role and expand your understanding of the MoQ?

My guess is probably not, but for the benefit of increasing my understanding
let's continue.

I think we (you, me,& RMP in his publish words) agree that intelligence,
intellect, intellectual, and intellectual level are related words with four
different and distinct sets of meanings. And from an evolutionary and a MoQ
perspective they evolved time-wise in the order listed above: intelligence
first, intellect second, etc.

What we do not agree on is when in evolutionary time each emerged.
We agree however that "intelligence" emerged first early within the
biological level. Amoebas have enough intelligence to value that swimming in
acid is a low quality situation. Then we moved on to intellect and Pirsig's
first claim about it in ZaMM. Formal logic is not my strong suit but here
goes.

P Premise one: Modern humans (you and me) have intellects.
P Premise two: Medieval humans and Indian humans had intellects of the same
intelligence and IQ as moderns humans the only difference being each has
different "concepts of thought"

>From which I concluded: Medieval humans and Indian humans had intellects.
And proceed on to next conclusion because Indians and Europeans evolved
separately for at least 13,000 years with no contact with Greece their
intellects can not automatically be said to be based on SOL.

But we bickered over the second premise. And I thought we agreed that
"concept of though" was roughly analogous to "metaphysics."  In other words
each of these groups had different ideas of "what they thought was real."

We then moved on to trying to agree on a definition of intellect and all
agreement stopped. Why, because if you agreed that there are any substantial
differences between the biological intelligence of animals and the
biological intelligence of humans your whole SOL premise collapses.

But the need for and the value of the word "intellect" is that there are
indeed substantial biological and operational differences between the human
brain and any other species. And that difference is its capacity and power
to accumulate knowledge, share it with each other, and use it to build more
complex social orders thus increasing the potential survival of the both
individual and the group.

And yes near the end of this journey, figure out how to rearrange and
categorize this knowledge into subjects and objects. But you are not going
to agree with much anything after "But we bickered...." anyway.

> No agreement on language. It is immensely old - the Neandethals are
> now believed to have had language,

Ok, Did language emerge on the biological or social level?

It really make no difference. Based on your interpretation:

If there are no substantial biological or operational differences between
human brains and other species from the biological to intellectual levels
except maybe an increase in intelligence.

And

We find humans and other species displaying most, if not all, social
qualities throughout the both biological and social level:

What is the transcendent quality that distinguishes the Social level from
the Biological? There is none. No social level and your original premise
works. That it completely changes the MoQ structure is another matter.

Additionally if we go back to your original SOL premise: (from Dan's LC
site)

> S-O thinking as Q-Intellect) which means that Q-Intellect
> (generally) is the ability of an individual (biological organism) to
> view itself as different from other (society) and thereby give rise
> to the subject-object intuition which in time grew into the
> S-O-METAPHYSICS.

We see that we have a biological organism that is somehow aware of a pattern
of value "other (social)" on the higher social level which according to the
basic ground rules of the MoQ is not suppose to be possible.

But you already knew that.
The consequences of your proposal are:

All levels: Individual discreteness and moral codes by level. Gone.
Social level: Must disappear. Gone.
Intellectual level: Contains only patterns of intellectual value generated
by or conforming to subject and object logic.
The MoQ: Gone. Or on a newly emergent static layer above intellectual. Or
floating around in the ether, God only knows were, and he's not talking,
never has.

Do you understand now why so many are vehemently opposed to your
interpretation as you are for it?

All to accomplish what?

> What is it that prevents intellect to be seen as
> Phaedrus did in in ZAMM - as SOM - and its emergence described in
> that book? Aretê then becomes its parent. This way ZAMM and LILA
> are seamlessly joined, instead of the present situation where ZAMM is
> some embarrassing relative.

Maybe seamless joined but with the MoQ of Lila left in tatters. One sail
over 30 years old seamless attached to one ripped to shreds. An old Navy guy
like me would rather jump ship than to put to sea with that. Happy sailing.

Face it Bo you read, understood, believed, and maybe were even trying to
live by the Quality of ZaMM. 15 years later based on further thinking, more
research, feedback from readers, and greater maturity RMP expanded a
metaphysical sketch that was ZaMM into a detailed full blown metaphysics of
Lila.  You were shocked and disturbed by his "progress" and have been doing
your level best to change it ever since.

Regardless of your feelings it is quite clear which book RMP thinks is more
important,more valuable going forward.  Your ZaMM baby died. Sorry. It lived
a good life and supports Pirsig's. Try to move on, I know it will be hard,
but try.

With sincerest condolences,

Dave